Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-12-02

! CLEANS OF sheet light

scared by the red CLEANS OF sheet light
ning-for it was weird night indeed.
Was that the scraping, the whine of the
terrier Bingo? No, 1t was but the wind
always the wind
Long before the tagging eutumnal sun
had flushed with ruddy dawn the Wil5,
dark SKY, MelsDie was up and about, but
had no heart for her daily tasks. Her
morning pensioners, the little birds,
pecked forgotten against the window
panes for the crumbs she Wss wont to
spread there for them regularly, snd her
white face and tremulous hands and limbs
evinced TO Bethia the terrible suspense of
! the night and morning.
The past day mad been one Of loDg and
keen excitement to MelsnIe Talbot. There
was the episode OF the despstCh-box, ard
the use for which it had been too evident
~ adopted; there was Lonsdale's letter
casting SO much lurid light on what had
been SO long sn astonishing mystery; her
protracted visit to her chief friends at
the vicarsge; and lastly, her dreadful
anxiety about Dick, consigned an infant
to her care on their mothers desth-bed,
when she herself YVES but child.
Utter prostration and WEAKNESS had
certainly made the poor girls eyes close
for few minutes, snd then, with start,
she had become more wakeful than ever.
Had DicK come home during the brief in
terval and stolen softly to his room?
Thrice she went thither in the grey dawn,
to find the chamber empty and his bed
unslept in.
She thought that If aught serious had
occurred to Dick his terrier would hsVe
returned; but Bethis reminded her how
often dogs had remained beside their mas.
ter, even when the latter-but moi She
thrust aside the thought Of peril, or
worse, as too horrible for adoption or
contemplation.
Dick was certainly gone; but souvenirs
OF him remained on every hand, particu-
larry his soiled ana tsttered schooloooks,
in many instances with pencilled cartoons
Of Uncle Grimshaw on the iy-leRves, his
pinceneZ and side-tuffs appearing con-
spiCuOusly therein.
She knew that Dick was penniless, and
as the day stole slowly On she looked
wistfully at the table when it was set out
for each meal, her heart aching as size
thought Of her boy and where, when, or
by whom his necessary wants were being
supplied, Il ct all, for he might be hungry,
faint and furnishing, while, with sll their
household frugality, there was food
enough, and to spare, at Rose Cottage.
The last depressing days, we have said,
of dreary English autumn were passing
then, and winter was nigh-the DAYS that
seem, according to brilliant English
preachers, to be presage of death, when
the winter has actually come. "The dsys
ere short ard the nights long, the sun is
low and the lights are dim, the fruit is
gathered and the earth is at rest, the
flowers are gone, the leaves are fallen,
the trees are bsre and lift their stripped
srms like the bones CT death, and every
thing seems preaching to us Of death"
So the night began to close again.
Where had that poor BOY gone, out into
the cold, bleak world? she asked herself
again and again.
He would come back-he must come
back! For q second night Melanie did not
undress, but lay on her bed Visiting end
listening alternately at door and window
till the gusty autumnsl night stole sway,
and she knew nothing, had learned moth
ing, but that her loving boy brother had
sore and bitter heart.
"Oh, what can have hsr7ened?'' she
cried, as she Wrung her incerlaced fingers
together.
"Somethirg must have happened,;
was the consolation offered by old Betha
Barlow, who had heard the tick Of the
Death watch, Of course, and eeen robin
beat its little breast against the window
IS she went TO bed.
ITO Re Continual Merit IVesE1